Greenwashing has become increasingly prevalent, particularly in heavy-polluting industries, which undermines the stakeholders’ interests and poses challenges to the sustainable development of companies. The resource-based view (RBV) holds that digital transformation can enhance corporate capabilities and competitive advantages; therefore, it has been increasingly recognized as an effective means to promote corporate sustainability. Meanwhile, the resource dependence theory (RDT) suggests that external financing needs prompt companies to cater to stakeholders’ expectations, which has uncertain implications for the effectiveness of digital transformation in curbing greenwashing. Based on the panel data from Chinese-listed companies in heavy-polluting industries between 2014 and 2023, this study investigates how digital transformation mitigates corporate greenwashing and how external financing needs moderate this relationship. The results reveal that digital transformation significantly mitigates greenwashing, and external financing demands magnify this effect by strengthening stakeholder scrutiny. Further mechanism tests show that digital transformation mitigates greenwashing by improving production efficiency and environmental performance. This study integrates RBV and RDT, making contributions to the existing literature by validating the interaction between internal digital capabilities and external financing dependence. This study also reveals the fundamental mechanisms by which digital transformation inhibits greenwashing. The conclusions of this study provide a new insight into corporate sustainability strategies for both companies and stakeholders.
Yue et al. (Sun,) studied this question.